Using the electronic medical records of 305 339 adults aged between 21 and 90 years, researchers at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine examined the association between IDA and sensorineural hearing loss (when there is damage to the cochlea or to the nerve pathways from the inner ear to the brain) and conductive hearing loss (hearing loss because of problems with the bones of the middle ear). IDA was determined by low haemoglobin and ferritin levels for age and sex.

Solanezumab’s failure is a wake-up call to look elsewhere for an answer to dementia

Is the amyloid cascade hypothesis of Alzheimer’s disease too big to fail? It proposes that brain deposition of β amyloid protein is the critical early event in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease and has been the centrepiece of dementia research for decades. The hypothesis suggests that removing β amyloid will reverse or prevent the clinical expression of dementia. However, in all phase III clinical trials to date, treatments targeting β amyloid have failed to improve cognitive outcomes despite reducing brain β amyloid.

Children admitted to hospital with severe asthma attacks generally receive “very effective and efficient” treatment and care, but more attention must be given to asthma education and review at discharge to help prevent future attacks and readmission, says a national audit by the British Thoracic Society.

The society’s National Paediatric Asthma Audit, published on 29 November, reviewed data on more than 5500 children over the age of 1 admitted with severe asthma attacks to 153 UK hospitals in November 2015 and found that most aspects of discharge from hospital were less than optimal.

Swimming, racquet sports, and aerobics seem to be the best forms of exercise for reducing the risk of death from heart disease and stroke, research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine has found.

The researchers said that the small number of events impaired the statistical power in some analyses. There were relatively few deaths from all causes among runners and football players, which may explain the wide confidence intervals. However, they concluded, “These findings demonstrate that participation in specific sports may have significant benefits for public health.”

A significant rise in the risk of speech and language disorders was found among children born to mothers prescribed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) during pregnancy, a study published in JAMA Psychiatry has found.

The type of intense extra workload pressure often experienced by the NHS in winter has become a year long experience, say experts responding to the publication of the latest official data on the performance of the NHS in England.

NHS England’s combined performance summary data show an NHS that is missing many of its targets and hitting new record lows for performance in some areas.

The BMA has warned that planned new digital NHS services, including an online “symptom checker,” should not replace patients’ direct access to GPs.

Brian Balmer, who chairs the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee, said that any new technology that improved patient care and access was to be welcomed, especially if it made appointment booking easier. But he said, “The proposed symptom checker is not the same as a consultation with a GP and should not be considered as such.”

More people than ever are receiving psychological therapies and April saw the highest recovery rates so far in the history of the programme, end of year data has shown.

The number of people referred for treatment from January to March (Q4) increased to 367,689 by around 17,000 from 350,505 in Q3. The 15 per cent access target was exceeded hitting a new high of 16.8 per cent.

The challenges of supporting patients to become more resilient and knowledgeable about their conditions are difficult to crack – and social media can be part of the problem.

To address this issue, healthcare teams at Royal Stoke Hospital have started supporting patients by developing self-care videos and facebook groups where clinicians can provide accurate, valuable self-care information to patients in a closed environment.

Children at high risk for peanut allergy who are treated with early peanut exposure from infancy to age 5 remain at low risk even after avoiding eating peanuts for a year, shows a UK study that indicates long lasting benefit from early exposure.

Peanut allergy is a common and potentially life threatening food allergy. A study published last year found that sustained peanut consumption beginning in the first 11 months of life reduced the rate of peanut allergy at age 5

Death rates in English hospitals where registered nurses cared for six or fewer patients were 20% lower than in those where they cared for more than 10, research published in the online journal BMJ Open has found.

Researchers looked at the number of beds per registered nurse, doctor, and healthcare support worker in 137 acute care trusts from 2009 to 2011. They also analysed the number of patients per ward nurse in a survey of 2917 registered nurses from a nationally representative subsample of 31 of these trusts.

Use of the oral antifungal drug fluconazole during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of miscarriage in an analysis of 1.4 million pregnancies in Denmark published in JAMA.

Vaginal candidiasis is common during pregnancy. Although intravaginal formulations of topical azole antifungals are the first line treatment for pregnant women, oral fluconazole is often used in cases of recurrence or severe symptoms or when topical treatment has failed.

The first national whistleblowing policy for the NHS aims to encourage doctors and other NHS employees in England to report bullying, threats to the safety of patients, and other harmful practices in their organisation, without blighting their careers in the process.

The draft policy, drawn up by Monitor, the NHS Development Authority, and NHS England, will be open to consultation for eight weeks from 16 November. NHS organisations, patients, and staff are invited to comment, in confidence if they wish.

The intention is to promote the pack to all new starters with health and social care organisations commissioning or providing services for the people of Eastern Cheshire. Organisations include third sector partners and providers of social housing.

For the avoidance of doubt, the pack is not relevant to employees involved exclusively in commissioning or providing services outside Eastern Cheshire. This pack is to be made available with immediate effect to new recruits, either salaried or voluntary.

At the end of every third month, a member of the Caring Together team will send managers a link to a brief online survey for new recruits to complete. This will enable them to measure awareness of the pack and the extent to which it is achieving its aim of improving understanding of Caring Together. Consultees will have the option to remain anonymous as the purpose of the survey is not to test individuals’ knowledge or pay attention to people who don’t answer all the questions correctly!

While the principal aim of the survey is to ensure that new starters are introduced to Caring Together as soon as practicable, the pack can also be shared with colleagues more widely. Reference copies of the pack are also available in the Staff Library (Top Floor, New Alderley House).

Many thanks to all in anticipation of your support for this important initiative to promote understanding of – and engagement in – our transformation programme.

Acute hospitals, mental health services, community trusts, ambulance services and primary care organisations report incidents to the NRLS where any patient could have been harmed or has suffered any level of harm. The reporting of incidents to a national central system helps protect patients from avoidable harm by increasing opportunities to learn from mistakes and where things go wrong.

A Patient Safety Alert has been issued by NHS England to launch an NHS-wide programme of work based around the National Safety Standards for Invasive Procedures (NatSSIPs) that were published on 7 September 2015.

The alert asks NHS providers to review current clinical practice and ensure the NatSSIPs are embedded into local processes by developing their own local safety standards for invasive procedures (LocSSIPs) in collaboration with staff, patients and the public.

There are well over 150 000 health apps available in Europe—from those designed to improve general wellness to apps that monitor medical conditions, apps for clinicians, and apps that function as medical devices. There have been more than 102 billion downloads of health apps worldwide yet there is little regulation or guidance available for doctors or patients on quality, safety, or efficacy.

Adolescents and young adults who use electronic cigarettes are more likely to progress to smoking tobacco cigarettes than those who do not, shows a small US study that researchers say supports regulations to limit sales and reduce the appeal of e-cigarettes to young people.

The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, followed up a nationally representative sample of 694 teenagers and young adults aged 16 to 26 who had never smoked. Their attitudes showed that they were not susceptible to smoking cigarettes because they had responded “definitely no” when asked whether they would try a cigarette offered by a friend or whether they believed that they would smoke a cigarette within the next year.